In a conventional ceiling embedded type air conditioner, which is disposed so that it is embedded in a ceiling surface, an outlet that blows out air conditioned air toward the indoor space is provided with a louver, which serves as a guiding means capable of changing the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air. Furthermore, the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air is changed to uniformize the temperature distribution of the indoor space, thereby achieving a satisfactory airflow distribution of the indoor space by executing control, such as: continuously swinging the louver to continuously change the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air to the vertical direction; setting the louver so that the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air is downward during heating operation; or setting the louver so that the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air is in the vicinity of substantially the horizontal direction with respect to the ceiling surface (hereinafter, referred to as the horizontal blow-out state) during cooling operation.
If the louver is set to the horizontal blow-out state, then the air conditioned air blown out from the outlet flows so that it clings to the ceiling surface due to the Coanda effect; consequently, even if the louver is changed so that the air conditioned air transitions slightly downward from the ceiling surface clinging state, there is a problem in that the flow of the air conditioned air clinging to the ceiling surface cannot be detached from the ceiling surface, and the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air therefore cannot be changed. Furthermore, there is a problem in that the ceiling surface tends to become stained in places because microgranular dust contained in the air conditioned air blown out from the outlet adheres to the ceiling surface.
In contrast, when changing the louver to another wind direction position (hereinafter, referred to as the target wind direction position), control is executed to downwardly adjust the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air by changing the blow-out vertical direction to a wind direction position that was adjusted to a position more downward than the target wind direction position, thereby detaching from the ceiling surface the flow of the air conditioned air clinging to the ceiling surface due to the Coanda effect, and enabling the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air to be changed. In addition, if the air volume of the air conditioned air is small, then a wide adjustment range is set for the wind direction position at this time (i.e., so that the blow-out vertical direction of the air conditioned air transitions more downwardly) so that a feeling of a draft is not imparted to the room occupants (see, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2003-269776).